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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23716654">The Second Coming of Doctor Robotnik</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/theprincessofdenial/pseuds/theprincessofdenial'>theprincessofdenial</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Gen, No beta we die like mne, Post-Canon, Stobotnik if you squint, Stone is loyal to a fault, hello I'm here to drink and write angst and I have nothing to drink, mild references to torture (not explicit), nobody bangs, vaguely religious language</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:47:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,169</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23716654</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/theprincessofdenial/pseuds/theprincessofdenial</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Apparently there was some stopping Robotnik since he vanished off the face of the planet and didn’t bother to call Stone at 3 AM just to wake him up and insult him like he usually did. Stone was sure it was a part of an elaborate plan, and he tried very hard not to feel hurt by not being let in on the secret.</p><p>a.k.a. yet another story about Robotnik disappearing and Stone dealing with the consequences.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dr. Eggman | Dr. Robotnik &amp; Agent Stone</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Second Coming of Doctor Robotnik</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>So apparently it was true what they said: the world didn’t end with a bang. Actually, it was  too gradual of a thing to even cause a whimper. The Doctor left in his prototype without saying where he was going, and that was perfectly normal. Stone had learnt the hard way that he should not ask questions, not dare to even think about them, he had no right to inquire about the Doctor’s whereabouts, if he was needed he would be called, he should not take up the Doctor’s precious time because now Doctor had to waste it on verbal communication and lowering himself to the Agent’s level, and it was a wonder the imbecile was even able to process speech when Nature was so parsimonious when providing him with folded cerebral cortex. So no questions it was. Despite Robotnik’s opinion, Agent Stone was a quick learner.</p><p>Naturally, Stone asked no questions when the Doctor didn’t come back by the evening. He also kept quiet when his boss failed to return to his lab the next day. It wasn’t like there was anyone who could be asked any questions anyway. Stone kept making lattes – no, definitely not compulsively – just in case the Doctor showed up, and he poured them down the drain as they got cold. He polished the remaining Badniks that Doctor didn’t take with him, and he caught up to some paperwork. To be honest, he did need that time – there were always too many reports Doctor Robotnik was supposed to file but considered them too mundane and tasked Stone with them, and Stone was always running behind the schedule. The higher-ups required regular reports that would justify the millions poured into research conducted by a maniac who was apparently unable to refrain himself from insulting anyone for longer than a minute and did not care about any hierarchy. Reports had to be filed to explain the almost comically over the top collateral damage during the field tests. Or in the lab, if somebody was really unlucky or failed to appease Robotnik quickly enough after some minor transgression.</p><p>Robotnik was a legend in the department, obviously. Everyone has heard of him though most of them were convinced he was just a story told to naughty agents who were too close to spilling governmental secrets to their relatives. An incredibly rude and disrespectful man with a comically outdated moustache was one thing – albeit you had to wonder why would anyone keep him around – but an evil genius was another. Sure, Doctor Robotnik must have been useful, Stone had thought back then, but the government would never keep an absolute maniac on the payroll. If there was an uncanny rotation of agents assigned to him, that must have been because they failed their organization and didn’t provide enough useful intel on the Doctor. And then he got assigned to said maniac (he would never know whether that was a demotion or a step up), quickly finding out that none of the legends surrounding the scientist were even remotely true.</p><p>He was so, so much worse. He was pompous, arrogant, <em>glorious</em>. He named his inventions Badniks, he would give some bombastic and vaguely menacing names to perfectly ordinary playlists, he would actually refer to his mobile laboratory as an evil lab – on good days, that is, the rest of the time it was an evil lair. The man seemed to emulate every cartoon villain there was <em>at the same time</em>. He referred to his agents as henchmen or minions. The biggest achievement in Stone’s life was being acknowledged as “Agent Stone” by the Doctor. It took Stone a year to realize that Robotnik believed “Agent” was his first name. Stone didn’t dare to correct him. Mostly, he was just grateful.</p><p>Stone didn’t waste much time wondering why the government was willing to work with a man who openly self-identified as evil. The answer was quite obvious if you spent a day in Robotnik’s vicinity: it was better having him on your side than having him against you. The Doctor would not share his most precious inventions with anyone, but the scraps he gave various government agencies were still decades ahead of their time. He made sure every crucial system was working on his own algorithms so he was not only indispensable but – should any idiot ever think of crossing him – he was impossible to get rid of.</p><p> </p><p>And that was why it took Agent Stone over two days of making coffee and getting rid of it to start worrying. The Doctor was invincible and obviously nothing bad could happen to him. Stone was certain of it.</p><p>What Stone was certain of, unfortunately, was also that if something <em>were</em> to happen to Robotnik, he would be the last to know. Oh, he didn’t expect headlines or news in the media (however, he did get a glimpse of something very similar to the prototype chasing a blue streak and destroying the pyramid of Giza – a shame, really, but the Doctor did have a flair for the dramatic). Whatever happened, it would be hushed-up. But Stone also knew the agency didn’t trust him enough to tell him about any mission gone awry before they made sure they had salvaged whatever Robotnik’s project or invention they could without Stone’s help. Stone, just like the myriad agents before him, was supposed to keep an eye on Robotnik and relay every bit of information to the government – it was up to the ones much higher in the hierarchy to decide whether Robotnik was still useful or whether the risk his existence posed was too great (as if they could do anything about it, Stone snorted to himself). He was good enough at pretending to spy on Robotnik and feeding the government unimportant intel so he wouldn’t get reassigned like the rest; not good enough to be completely trusted, just good enough so that there was always a doubt whether he had been compromised, and no way to definitely prove it. What he <em>was</em> really good at was pleasing Robotnik and catering to his ego.</p><p> Stone told his new boss right away about the actual purpose of his mission (the only available smart move, to be honest) and was quickly corrected. His purpose was to make decent coffee and get the hell out of Robotnik’s way. Stone translated it to “stay and be unyieldingly loyal to me from now on”. And he did.</p><p>He was correct. They both knew Stone’s presence served a much more important purpose than being an assistant – he was a translator for Robotnik whenever the scientist needed to communicate with anyone. Stone didn’t understand how Robotnik was able to deal with any person before having the agent assigned to him. It wasn’t just about the big pompous words and the incurable tendency to suddenly get into technical details nobody understood. It was, perhaps, about the insults Robotnik was delivering every time his mouth opened, but not exactly. The Doctor, Stone quickly found out, was unable to communicate anything in a different manner even if he wanted to. Robotnik <em>must</em> <em>have</em> wanted to express something besides anger at times, Stone was sure, though he would never bet his life on it. Stone was the one to dumb it all down, to mediate between the heights Robotnik existed in and the humans. Stone was basically the Metatron. Of course that would make Robotnik God in that analogy but Stone didn’t really mind.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>So when the Doctor didn’t come back from the dead on the third day, things suddenly got... worrisome. No, not scary, Stone was a professional and he didn’t get scared. Stone was also absolutely certain the Doctor was too competent to let anything really bad happen to him. But since he was a professional, he acted the part – just in case, and pushing the thoughts about doing it too late to the back of his mind. He lost his tail - it was early on, so Uncle Sam had assigned only two agents to him by that time (where was the challenge in that, Stone wanted to ask). He hid some of the most valuable Badniks in the middle of nowhere along with copies of whatever data he was able to access – which was surprisingly a lot. Not all of it, obviously, but much more than he expected. As it turned out in the following months when a legion of specialists was trying to get past the first firewall, much more than anyone else was allowed to. As if Robotnik coded every little piece of programming so that it would recognize only Stone. After the lab automatically locked down a week after Stone's escapade – apparently some sort of a failsafe if Robotnik didn’t show up for a longer period of time – the agent turned out to be the only one to whom the interface at the door even responded. Not that it let him in, oh no. But it was kind enough to inform him that the access was being denied – which was more than the dead silence everyone else was greeted with. Being singled out by Robotnik in this way would be flattering, were it not so dangerous.</p><p>Because oh yes, the government tried to make use of Stone. Of course they did, even if it took them much more time than Stone needed to bury what they were interested in. At first they just told him he was being reassigned and they refused to explain what happened to his boss. Then they proclaimed Robotnik dead. Stone expected as much and went quite meekly about it. He knew very well that if the Doctor wanted him back, he would get him back and there was no stopping him.</p><p>Well, apparently there was <em>some</em> stopping Robotnik since he vanished off the face of the planet and didn’t bother to call Stone at 3 AM just to wake him up and insult him like he usually did. Stone was sure it was a part of an elaborate plan, and he tried very hard not to feel hurt by not being let in on the secret. The Doctor didn’t answer to him, he told himself. The Doctor had every right to put him through the trials. The Doctor would emerge in the most unexpected moment to test his loyalty. So when three weeks after Robotnik disappearance the doorbell rang in the middle of the night, Stone wasn’t thinking as clearly as he should have had, and he raced towards the door and opened it, naively expecting to find one very angry scientist. He found five agents – some of them he knew, some of them he didn’t. The act of opening the door didn’t make much difference anyway, it wasn’t like he could run away. Besides, if the Doctor wanted him to run away, he would have told him, wouldn’t he.</p><p>They were collected, professional, and they just wanted to ask him some questions. To which he answered to the best of his ability, of course, since he was a government agent just like them. They didn’t ask about the missing equipment (they must have had not noticed it – no wonder since they couldn’t access the lab). He did not volunteer that information.</p><p>They would come often after that night. Sometimes during the daytime, but Stone suspected it was just to throw him off. He was being very politely harassed, and soon he couldn’t fall asleep for longer than two hours without someone waiting at his door. He was used to being constantly on edge, that was normal if you were working with Robotnik. But even the Doctor had some empathy, as it turned out. Stone was beginning to understand Robotnik’s frustration with having a biological body that required rest and sustenance, and he was not as good at ignoring his as the Doctor was. The questions varied from completely insignificant to suddenly oddly specific when the friendly smiling agents expected him to have his guard down. And he would provide them with answers, he hadn’t had a decent sleep in months, he was their employee, of course he would. If they kept asking the wrong questions, that was not his fault.</p><p> </p><p>But the lab doors wouldn’t open, the algorithms designed by Robotnik would suddenly stop working, as if they needed maintenance only Robotnik could provide. The drones started missing every target, which itself was quite uncanny since they would hit everyone and everything except for the one thing they were supposed to. They clearly knew what was the target and they were missing it intentionally. The answers Stone was giving suddenly became unsatisfactory.</p><p>Stone was no idiot (besides, there was no one around to call him that anymore). It was far too late to do anything. He might have been a good operative but he was being followed by men with the same kind of training and much more resources. Stone would never jeopardize the tech he stole from the lab before it became an impenetrable fortress by using it and letting anyone know of its existence. He didn’t run when they took him. Mostly because he wasn’t instructed to.</p><p>It was all very civil. They had paramedics controlling those little talks, the needles they would stick under his fingernails were sterile, and whatever substances he was given would cause no brain damage. And of course he answered the questions to the best of his ability. He even offered a helpful smile.</p><p>Did Robotnik work with some other government behind their backs? No, he didn’t think so.</p><p>Was Robotnik compromised? Hard to tell, really, what do you mean by “compromised”? Like, emotionally? The Doctor didn’t really dabble in emotions.</p><p>Was Robotnik mentally stable? No, not really, but the Doctor did serve his purpose, didn’t he? They didn’t seem to mind before.</p><p>Could Robotnik have some secret hideouts? Oh yes, definitely. But they were secret, so Stone wouldn’t know.</p><p>Was there a master code that would make every piece of equipment or mainframe work as it was supposed to? Yes, definitely, Robotnik wouldn’t bother entering thousands of separate codes. No, Stone had absolutely no idea what the code was. Really.</p><p>What did he know about Robotnik’s childhood? Well, he didn’t understand how was that even remotely relevant, by he didn’t know much. The Doctor did mention at some point he was an orphan. And he seemed very angry with people who, as Robotnik assumed, had parents or friends. “Nobody cares how proud your mommy is that you’re now reading on a third grade level,” he said to major whatshisname a few days before his disappearance, Stone added helpfully. But no, he didn’t know much more.</p><p>(Which was technically true, Stone did not know anything with absolute certainty, he was just guessing. He did spent quite some time looking for any traces of Robotnik’s childhood at some point, hoping it would make him understand the Doctor better.</p><p>Robotnik was raised mostly by TV, Stone assumed from the Doctor’s fascination with supervillains. It was obvious he found the best role models for an ostracized intelligent child in the characters that were at least a little bit similar. It was always the villains who had no powers except for their intellect. They were the only ones willing to oppose the brute force of superheroes. Perhaps nobody explained to little Ivo he wasn’t supposed to be rooting for them; perhaps Ivo just didn’t care.</p><p>Stone spent far too much time trying to track down any reports in local newspapers that would correlate with the stories Robotnik sometimes shared with him. It was a rare occurrence for a bully to be beaten to the ground by a robot, someone must have mentioned it. And they did. So Stone managed to pinpoint the town where Ivo had been growing up. He took a closer look at the archives and found some reports of a fire that happened at a house that might or might not have been Ivo’s. The reports offered no names and were placed far away from the front page. The fire itself might or might not have been caused by arson, and it was uncanny how only the child survived – and did so without a scratch. Well, not exactly without a scratch, there was one sentence about indications of child neglect and possible child abuse. The orphan seemed to be in deep shock, other report mentioned – the boy did not shed a tear and showed no hint of despair, clearly a sign of not being able to process the news at the tender age of five.</p><p>That did not bother Stone. Whoever might or might not have died in that fire, had it coming, Stone was quite certain. He was also painfully aware that Robotnik must have known of his investigations, just didn’t care enough to stop him. Or, Stone would sometimes think hopefully, the Doctor was <em>allowing</em> him to learn about his past. Some things didn’t add up, like the genius grandfather absent from the reports but mentioned in Robotnik’s files the government had collected. There was also a distinct possibility that this whole paper trail had been fabricated, but that would mean that Robotnik cared enough to invent an origin story just for Stone’s sake. Or perhaps Robotnik created dozens of them for everyone trying to investigate his past. Stone wasn't that special, after all.)</p><p>So no, he did not <em>know </em>anything, not really.</p><p>Why did Robotnik make almost every design egg-shaped and did that hold a deeper meaning? Oh, Stone wouldn’t know, really. They had a nice symmetry to them, he’d guess.</p><p>What were Robotnik’s sexual preferences? Stone was once again not sure how was that relevant but, umm, none, as far as he could tell. The Doctor was a busy man.</p><p>What was the master code? Oh, but Stone already told them he didn’t know (and he truly didn’t).</p><p>How could they access the data stored on Robotnik’s computers? Stone had no idea. They didn’t ask about the copies he made and hid right before he was put under more strict surveillance, so he didn’t see the need to answer questions he wasn’t asked.</p><p>What was the master code? He didn’t know.</p><p>Why was one of Robotnik’s PhDs in generative linguistics instead of something more useful? Oh, that’s an easy one. Language is just like coding, isn’t it? And the other way around, so that must have been helpful when the Doctor was working with the computers, Stone smiled sheepishly.</p><p>Was Robotnik even a real name? Well, they must have looked into his files before they enrolled him, right? Yes, agent, everything checked out, but how could they believe anything they found there? Someone making robots being named Robotnik, that’s just preposterous. Yes, it is a silly coincidence, Stone agreed. It sounded vaguely Slavic, he even volunteered.</p><p>He would conjure up the visions of his inevitable rescue, fantasizing sleepily about a moustache-twirling villain from the silent cinema era. Sometimes, on the rare instances that Stone was left alone long enough to enter the REM sleep, he would dream about the villain coming in a halo, his face contorting in anger, tearing down the walls with one tiny gesture, and insulting everyone for hours without slowing down and without repeating a single slur once. Then he’d ascend with or without Stone.</p><p>The important thing was the Doctor was coming.</p><p>They kept asking about the master code, and that was plainly annoying. What Stone found really worrisome (though he chastised himself every time after he had allowed himself to worry) was the questions about the possibility of Robotnik working on gateways to other dimensions. Stone genuinely did not know, but he didn’t suppose Robotnik had ever been looking into that. He wasn’t sure whether they were disappointed or relieved, but he was beginning to be sure Robotnik was not on Earth anymore. Possibly trapped (oh, you of little faith! As if the Doctor could be trapped! But maybe – just maybe – he could be slowed down just a tiny bit). The government seemed to both hope and tremble at the thought of his return.</p><p>But it’s been almost a year and he still hadn’t returned. Stone didn’t learn what they knew about the Doctor’s fate – aside for the silly claims of Robotnik’s death – but he heard something like “MIA” being thrown around, what suggested Robotnik did not go rogue. They were just too busy trying to get their hands on Doctor’s weaponry, they didn’t bother even attempting to look for him, not to mention making any effort to bring him back. Perhaps, just perhaps, if they were smart enough to pretend to care about the man himself, Stone would have given them some useful information. They could use Robotnik’s research to find him. Stone realized he would give them the location of the hard discs and Badniks in a heartbeat if there was any indication anyone actually wanted to get Robotnik back instead of wanting the equipment to be in the perfect working order. Or just any order. Stone didn’t care, really. They all seemed okay with marooning their own operative – no, scratch that. The most brilliant man that has ever existed.</p><p>Stone caught himself thinking about the Doctor needing help, and he wasn’t sure when such horrible thoughts had started. Almost as if the Doctor depended on anyone – him, who single-handedly caused states to rise and fall, being at the mercy of humans!</p><p>Before Robotnik showed up to claim him, they let Stone go, never getting around to ask the right questions or giving him any real incentive. No damage inflicted to his body was permanent. They even had the audacity to thank Stone for his service, smile sympathetically, and offer him a nice desk job. He smiled back as politely as he was able to and asked for his long overdue leave. He was granted it suspiciously easily.</p><p>He knew he was being followed every time he would go out to do groceries or silently drink in a bar. He never visited the site where he hid the most precious items he ever possessed. They weren’t actually his, after all. Eventually, he just made peace with sitting at home, ordering take-outs and watching old cartoons. Stone became very fond of Wile E. Coyote and flinched every time something bad happenned to him. He still wore his suits to his couch, and he refused to ponder on the rationale standing behind making two cups of coffee every time. From the pieces of news that he encountered while jumping through the channels he got a pretty good picture of what was happening. The whole world seemed to be on the brink of war, with missiles being fired for no reason at random locations, and top secret documents getting leaked to the media by something as simple as spambots. Everything outside Stone’s little apartment was falling to pieces, and he just sat there, watching cartoons contently, fantasizing about insults hurled at him and practicing his trademark blank smile.</p><p>He wasn’t sure why he was expecting the Doctor to be back by Christmas – yes, Robotnik did like to pick various holidays for his most daring endeavors, and he seemed to love redirecting everyone’s attention from the celebrations, taking delight in the idea that because of him some general couldn’t spend the day with their family. Stone knew for a fact that on many occasions Robotnik actually waited with revealing a new invention or causing a coup d'état in some tactically important country just because he wanted to spoil somebody’s holidays. At the beginning Christmas did seem like a good, trustworthy date, definitely a family holiday, months away. The Doctor would have definitely made it by that time, and it would have been <em>spectacular</em>. Stone spent Christmas in a small holding cell and had to guess what day it was, but at some point he was pretty sure it had been well past the New Year’s Eve (oh, that would have been yet another great opportunity for Robotnik to ruin people’s fun) and nothing changed. When he was finally released, he just stopped paying attention to any holidays – he told himself that was because he would know neither day, nor the hour, and he refused to admit he was just trying to avoid disappointment.  Next Christmas came and passed and he didn’t notice, too busy with coffee-making and pinning himself to the wall drills. If the Doctor didn’t resurge by that time, he must have had a good reason for that.</p><p>When the Doctor gets back, Stone will be ready. It’s been almost two years but he’s coming back, just... slowly. The Doctor is coming in all the shining glory of his genius, and Stone will witness it, and maybe he’ll even be allowed to stand by his side. And if the Doctor gets back angrier than ever, that’s even better. They all deserve it.
 He will get back, oh definitely. Stone just needs to be patient for a little bit longer.</p>
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